Category: business

Bungie last week announced their new expansion for Destiny, The Taken King, and in the process alienated another big chunk of their fanbase. The motivation for their behavior is obvious: to extract as much money as possible from paying customers in a desperate attempt to postpone the inevitable. But it’s getting to the point where even the most indoctrinated players are starting to feel exploited.

The new Microsoft console, Xbox One, has just been revealed, with more details to come at E3. These are my initial thoughts. I’ve already written up and retweeted a bunch of immediate reactions on Twitter:

In the Guardian piece I linked yesterday Clay Shirky was quoted saying, “Institutions will try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution.” Anecdotal evidence and intuition agree with this observation, but what does it really mean?

Barry Eisler has an article in The Guardian today continuing to point out the problems with the arguments supporting legacy publishers against the Justice Department’s suit. It’s good, but what prompted this post was the great links in the article to some things I hadn’t come across before.

A lot of people are blogging lately about the civil antitrust suit the US Department of Justice filed against Apple and 5 of the Big 6 publishers. Some authors are saying some pretty ridiculous things to paint Amazon as the bad guy and the Big 6 as the underdogs, and of course the publishers themselves want you to see them this way. I found it kind of disappointing today that John Scalzi recommended people read that drivel by Charlie Stross, especially since Scalzi’s earlierpoints on the matter were so rational. I found this section of Stross’ diatribe both humorous and galling (emphasis mine): Continue reading Trust Busting

I should have mentioned this sooner, but on Friday Barry Eisler put up a nice post on his blog about the motivations of the Authors Guild. It explains the point more thoroughly than the original comment I made on the topic.

Zynga bought OMGPop (the makers of Draw Something) this week (only 6 weeks after the game was released), for $180 million plus $30 million in retention payments to keep the small developer’s 40 employees. In cash, not shares.

More news sites are realizingtoday what the Scrolls trademark going to Zenimax means for Mojang. Of course, they still haven’t really said anything about how little sense the whole thing makes. I think Zenimax Media gets better treatment than Tim Langdell by gaming news sites just because it actually makes games people enjoy.